Tuesday, March 8, 2011

"Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future"

Peter Wehner, on the relevance of personal morality as we judge the fitness of individuals for public office:

Lives have moral trajectories. Before his conversion on the road to Damascus, Paul was a persecutor of Christians. Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future, in the words of Oscar Wilde. But not every sinner has the same past. Forgiveness shouldn’t be confused with what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace.” And when the situation allows for it, it probably makes sense to invest our trust in public officials whose lives have been characterized by integrity rather than by self-indulgence.

Standfast:

[Honest said] "I thought we had an honest man upon the road...."
"If you thought not amiss," said Standfast, "how happy am I! But if I be not as I should, ‘tis I alone must bear it."(John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress)